sixthiterationlogs | ψ they got the cages, they got the boxes

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ψ they got the cages, they got the boxes

WHO: Finnick Odair
WHERE: PROJECT ATHENA POD, far western edge of the canyon
WHEN: 20th January
OPEN TO: Annie Cresta
WARNINGS: Surprisingly little given it's the Careers...
STATUS: Completed

They've been hiking for the better part of the day now, and Finnick and Annie have made it to the western edge of the canyon. Starting in the south and working their way back up, they've been hunting for anything that might match the description of a bear and a grotto given in one of the clues for Finnick's gifts a few weeks ago. Some of the clues have been difficult, near-impossible, for them to decipher, but this one at least seems to have enough clues in it. They've just been wary of meddling too much with bears, but today they're exploring in the hopes of being able to find the place they're looking for without encountering the creature.

It's been slow work, the two of them wrapped up warm, their stout hiking boots laced tight, trying to make enough noise to alert the wildlife to their presence. They're also looking for bear tracks, for what good that will do in the snow, and so far they've seen no hint of a bear, nor any of the other wild animals they know live in the woods.

Finnick is carrying his spear, leaning on the haft like a walking stick, trying to ignore the sparking jolts that are sometimes still dancing from its head, even though the lights in the sky have dimmed a little since a few days ago. Worse are the occasional jolts of static from the knife he carries in his pocket, and the somewhat erratic behavior of the compass he's occasionally inspecting, taken out of the bag of equipment Jo Harvelle had given him.

This part of the canyon doesn't look like it did last time he was here. There are more boulders gathering at the bottom of the rocky walls, big chunks of stone that look like they've been thrown down from on high. Annie's already nervous in the aftermath of the earthquake, so he doesn't comment on the altered landscape.

Not until he glances up into the cliff-face and, above them, sees the tell-tale patch of darkness that indicates a cave.

"Was that there before?" he asks, lifting the spear to point up above them.

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Her mind has been working overtime the past few days, since the earthquake. Grabbing clues, patterns, assessing them and forcing her logic not to spiral her off into a panic. Another panic. It frightens the goslings and it's exhausting. She needs to stop. The ever-brightening aurora doesn't bother her, exactly. It's all another arena sky, isn't it? They've been all kinds of colours. And it's clever, too. Stopping people from maybe sleeping right. Make them tired, get them on edge. Make them hallucinate except no, no, she's not doing that. She's slept. She's fine. There's been no flooding, no c r a c k in any wall.

But she has to admit, the cliff makes her swallow. Makes her fingers tighten around her walking stick.

It's not a crack, it's a hole.

But.

No water, no shining sparkle over ice. Nothing. The rocks are dry, if snowy.

"I..." She swallows, again. "No, it wasn't." There's a question in her voice, in the way she tilts her head and glances at him, from him to the cave and back. Questioning. Part, do you think that was on purpose and part should we look?

He's watching her as he says it, even though he probably should be trying to study the cliff face for any clues as to just what's been uncovered by the rockfalls. He's watching her, because he remembers, he'll never forget that rush of water from the too-fragile dam cracked by an earthquake, and what it had done to the bodies of the tributes it caught. He'll never forget watching Annie climb so desperately with the skill born of years clambering through rigging, trying to climb higher faster than the water could flood.

He's been the one to soothe her out of her panic when the earthquakes have struck here, and he knows some of her fears, spoken and unspoken, irrational and, here and now, very rational.

So he can understand the hesitation in the way she speaks, but he also knows the cant of her head and the solemnity in the deep green of her eyes. She knows, as well as he does, that so far they've been given plenty of messages, and they're only out here because they'd agreed this was another of them.

They can hardly ignore it if it's what they're supposed to do.

He nods at her.

"I can go up if you stand guard."

Rational, irrational. Unrational, pre-rational, post: it all can be so hard to tell. Like now. Desire to stick close to him welling up.

But she has been trained. Trained well, too. So Annie can do this. She can nod at him and say, "Sure." She can even stand guard, scan all directions prepared to yell a warning. Their supplies are split between them, but that's not even close to her first concern. Her second, yes, but there is a vast chasm between them.

Logically, rationally it has been too soon, the cave too high, for any large creature (mutt) to make its home. The main danger would be from the ground.

Annie keeps an eye on the cliff anyway. Just...

Just in case.

He has, for the moment, forgotten that their specific aim is to find the bear's grotto that supposedly is the hiding place for one of his unexpected gifts. This place isn't the Hunger Games in the normal sense, but it still feels very much like an arena: constructed, artificial in spite of the apparent expanse of nature between the canyon walls. And something like a sudden cave surely has a meaning.

He wants to know what it is. So he unslings his pack from his back and takes out one of the lengths of their homemade rope they'd used as safety lines when they'd gone up on the roof of their house, before settling the straps back on his shoulders. Fashioning a makeshift harness doesn't take long -- boat crews on the vessels that are still masted learn how to do in for that just-in-case chance that they need to be up there and don't have a harness handy. It would be better with better equipment, but he knows enough about climbing to know what he's doing. Find a good spot to anchor himself before he starts, pass the rope up and through any crags in the rock face that offer a chance to catch a fall.

Better if Annie could belay him, but she's standing guard, and they don't have the gear. Besides, he's sure-footed enough that he mostly doesn't need the rope, athletic enough he can haul his own body weight up when he needs to climb, but even he knows that the rope is a good idea if he's climbing up through cliffs that have recently been disturbed by a landfall.

It takes him a little while to get up there, but when he does, the first thing he looks for is tracks in the snow. There don't seem to be any: everything on the ledge in front of the cave is covered with a pristine coat of snow. What there is, though, is what looks very much like fresh fracturing in the rocks around one side of the ledge, newly jagged edges cutting across the stone as if some rock formation had previously been there but is now scattered among the boulders at the foot of the cliff. When he brushes the snow off, he can see the edge is clean, no ingrained dirt or remnants of moss or lichen to show it's been there any length of time.

He steps nearer to the edge of the ledge so he can call down to Annie.

"I think there used to be some more rocks up here. Looks like something fell down, that's why we can see the cave."

Watching him climb is normal. A dash of normal that isn't tied to the Careers any more than being young and dumb in District Four ever has. They are good climbers, those who live on boats, docks, by climbable walls from which to do risky, showy dives.

(She has done it itself, when younger and dumber. She might still do it, if dared.)

So she doesn't worry about him climbing. She watches for threats to him from the outside. Mutts. Traps. All of that.

When he calls down, she watches for a moment, assessing the situation. Is bear maybe BEAR? B. E. A. R.?

"Anything worth looking at in the cave?"

Another question under it: should I come up?

He's not sure what, if anything, he expects. Or why he's up here. Yes, it's curiosity, but curiosity about what? It's a cave, there are plenty of them in the rock-faces lining the sides of the canyons, where people try to climb to see if they can escape. (Finnick hasn't bothered: he'd heard the stories and knew exactly what they meant. Ever since Haymitch Abernathy used the edges of the arena as a weapon in the Second Quarter Quell, the Gamemakers have been very careful to stop tributes getting too close to their bounds.)

This could be what they're looking for. Or it could be some new trick of this place's Gamemakers. Or something they're supposed to see, led here by the clue to his gift the same way they'd been led to the Inn and the village's social heart by the encouragement of their first gifts from the Gamemakers.

That's why they need to look around here.

Finnick's been carrying additional items in his pack since they'd received their gifts, mostly things out of the equipment-filled backpack Jo Harvelle had gifted him. It was a tribute's dream in an arena, packed with the sort of things they'd need to get by in the Games: rope, tools, a compass (for all the good that does in this magnetic sky). And a flashlight, which he retrieves now and clicks on.

"I'll take a look and see."

He doesn't need to tell her to remain on guard: he knows she will. She always, always has his back when he needs it. So flashlight in one hand and lockback knife in the other, Finnick takes a few wary steps into the cave, then pauses to flash the light through the darkness.

In the darkness, something flashes, catching the beam of the flashlight and bouncing it back in sharp, shining orange. There's something big and metallic back there.

Finnick takes a few steps back, out of the mouth of the cave.

"There's something in there," he calls back down.

Something in there. Something. Not a creature to be disturbed by the shout, nothing horrific; he sounds fine. But something curious, different. She's not sure if it is anything expected or not. After all, it's just a shout.

But it's one she should return.

"What kinda thing?" Annie shouts back. Then, risking a look up at him, she adds, "Want me to come up?"

Dangerous, perhaps, to announce her intention so clearly. Except she doesn't think anyone is listening or watching, besides the Gamemakers. Whoever they are. And she's not only curious, but if there is something there, something reportable, then it's going to get damn awkward with her on the ground without a radio.

"I'd tell you if I knew," he calls back down. "Some sort of metal thing. Looks worth exploring, but it's a fair way in. Think it's safer with both of us."

He wants her to have his back up here, just like she did while he was climbing. Up here, they can go in together, or if she's still nervous about the earthquake, she can stay on the ledge, watch his back, and back him up if anything happens.

He crouches at the edge of the ledge, where he can see her peering up at him.

"It's not a hard climb. But if you want the rope, I'll belay you."

They make a good team. She knows they do. Cresta and Odair, who sometimes teamed up on the docks of their home fishery and sometimes glared at each other across a gulf of misunderstanding. Not that they've done the latter for a while: their teenage selves hadn't been kind to each other, or themselves. Still, with all of that history and trust, they are not actually telepathic. Normally, Annie is glad of this. They know too many of the other's weaknesses, could tear each other to useless shreds given a bad enough mood and no ability to bite their tongues or walk away. But, right now, telepathy would useful.

She'd prefer a radio, though. So she could (could have) confer(red) with Finnick, get the dimensions, distance. Except, except, that kind of things is more her style of analysis, isn't it?

"I'd prefer the rope," she says. Her brain is too scattered, still grasping at this and that, chasing shadows. A rope is more secure.

It takes easy enough work to get up the cliff, to the cave. It's not that high up, just high enough to be dangerous if they fell. Of course, if the roof of the cave collapses except no, no, no, she's got enough problems, she's not going to add thought up claustrophobia to the list.

Once she is up, secure, she looks at the cave first of all. And that glint of -

"Is that bronze?"

They've both been good at climbing for pretty much as long as they've known each other. Kids in District Four learn to climb the masts of boats, the rocks and cliffs around their homes. Using safety ropes wasn't always a part of what they did, especially not climbing up the cliffs, but the belaying was something you could learn from a close enough watching of enough years of the Hunger Games. They'd even discussed it, studied it a little, in school. Practiced it out on the cliffs.

So it's not difficult to belay Annie up. Care makes it take a while, but it's not long before she's up there with him, and when she is, Finnick points the light back into the cave, so Annie can see what he'd seen, the large metallic something in the dark.

"I don't think so. Doesn't look quite like it."

He leaves the beam focused steadily on it, so Annie can study it. He'd asked her up here because he wanted her opinion.

"Should we take a closer look?" he says, glancing sidelong at her.

Annie doesn't answer. It isn't that she's ignoring him that she is caught in trying to assess where she (they) are and what Finnick has found. Her eyes sweep the cave they are in, the state of it, the dimensions of the metal - except, as she pads a little closer, her eyes can focus enough to see that it isn't a solid sheet of metal, but mesh and strips of it.

There's also a door.

"We're here anyway," she says in reply, finally looking back at him. This time, she takes the lead. She's smaller, she can duck fast if it's a trap. But the way forward is easy, and when they get close, Annie can see a door.

A door.

A door, and beyond it, desks, chairs, some kind of machinery with screens and blinking lights. The kind of helpful lights that something makes when it is trying to be reassuring that it is on, that electricity is working.

No overhead lights on, but Annie thinks she can see a switch inside.

"What you think?"

Wordlessly, he nods as she slips forward to take the lead. Also wordlessly, he draws the knife from the backpack of equipment Jo Harvelle had given him out of his pack: he keeps it where it's the first thing he grabs when he reaches inside. He hold the light steady for Annie, and ash she approaches, he advances behind her. He'd be happier with his spear, but there'd been no practical way to get the thing up here, so they'll have to make do with the knife.

When they get closer, it becomes apparent that what they've found is some sort of metal-enclosed room, unlike anything he's ever seen before. His flashlight beam breaks into odd patterns of shadow as it passes through the mesh, resting on a desk here, a blank screen there, some sort of big box with a flashing light on the front, a pile of papers on one of the desks.

"Nowhere in the village has this sort of technology," he says, softly, taking another few steps forward to look closer through the mesh. He can feel a creeping sensation between his shoulder blades, the sense of something not right that he learned long ago not to trust, and he takes a moment to check their surroundings again. Nothing obvious.

Nothing except the metal room, and what looks like a crumbled pile of rock-rubble. He glances upwards at the ceiling, but nothing looks unstable.

If they shouldn't have found this place, being here puts them in danger. But if they're already here, then they've already drawn that danger on them. Much as they've tried to avoid provoking their Gamemakers, he doesn't want to leave this be. Not yet.

"We've already found it. We should go in, see if we can learn anything."

He's sure she's thinking what he is: that this is like what Mark Watney and the others found when they went hunting that mutt.

Well, she thinks, if they are trapped in here, they'll be trapped together. Die together. It's more than they could have hoped for, back in Panem.

Then she realises that this is the first time she's said that so casually, that they aren't in Panem. But it's adding up more and more that they aren't, that they really, truly, are somewhere else entirely. She's known that for a while, but even in her mind, she's added caveats to it.

Still, Annie knows better than to say any of that aloud: she nods and slips forward. Carefully, paying attention to where she puts her feet in case it's a mine. She listens for clicks, for mechanisms sliding in place, but there's nothing. Just the sound of her boots on the floor.

Carefully, still carefully, she reaches up, and turns on the lights.

Nothing. Nothing except bright lights making this whole little room seem so sterile and clean. It makes her think of a Gamemaker's office, their control centre. How it must be.

"Those pages, over there," she says, glancing at Finnick to make sure he's still there and still alive and still breathing. "The others said they disintegrated when they tried to move them out. Should... Should I copy them?"

She has her sketchbook, after all.

He's at her back with his knife as she moves, and he's listening intently for any sign of a trap just as he's sure she must be. Skill can only get you so far, and your senses, intuition and luck have to do the rest. They're with them, this time: it's no more an obvious trap than any of the other things they've found here have been.

There's even electricity, when Annie reaches for the switch. Brighter electricity than he's seen since ... when? Before he was here. Maybe even since last time he was in the Capitol.

"Nowhere else here has power," he says, stepping in behind her.

She glances back at him, asking him about the pages of notes that are on one of the desks. Finnick is halfway towards one of the screens -- a computer, maybe? Or some sort of surveillance? -- when she asks.

"Are we going to tell the others?" he says, softly, going the rest of the way and pressing the flashing switch that looks most like an on button.

If not, they could just read whatever the notes say themselves. He has an excellent memory, though not even Annie knows just how good it is and just what he's got hidden in it.

It's an important consideration, though. In this place, information is a form of currency, and it's a form of power.

More than that, it's survival, and this place feels ominous, the little row of screens and the notes and the knowledge that someone else has been here. Not removed, like the Gamemakers safe in the Capitol while their captives play out their lives and deaths in front of them. He's never seen the Gamemakers' control centre in person, but he's imagined it, and this is unsettlingly like some sort of smaller version of what he'd dreamed up as he imagined their work.

(That thought crawls under his skin where things he doesn't want to think about live, things he's never told Annie, things he can barely even breathe aloud.

It makes him want to smash everything in this room, for all this isn't the same and these seem increasingly not the same Gamemakers they know.)

It's a fair enough question, and one she doesn't answer for a bit. She can do this with him, just not reply until she's thought it over. He's used to her odd silences. And it's not as if she isn't working in her silence: as she thinks, she copies out the writing on the sheet. She can't understand even nearly all of it, just words. Sometimes she feels proud of understanding that there is a 'the' involved in a sentence, but eventually she gets used to the words enough to pick out the overall gist of it.

Which is electricity. Which is electrical experiments. Which is conducting magnetism in the air, but this is all far, far beyond her schooling.

She just copies the words faithfully, in case the pages disintegrate like the last lot.

"Yes," Annie says finally, in the tones of one making a judgement. "We tell them. This is too... They're not used to games like we are. And we gotta live in the area with them. They'd be angry, if we hid it."

This feels dangerous.

Dangerous, and not in the static hair-on-your-neck sort of a way that's become constant since the auroras started blazing so bright in the sky, dancing like sand in a windstorm. He realizes, in fact, that he no longer feels that prickling of static.

His face is still turned to the screen he'd just activated, but his eyes are on Annie, watching her as she considers his question. He doesn't repeat it; he knows her too well for that, and he can see that she's thinking, even as she starts to copy out one of the documents.

In his peripheral vision, something changes, and his gaze darts back to the screen -- a computer, not a television, it seems, because it's asking for a password. He wouldn't even know where to start trying to work out the Gamemakers' passwords.

He's still staring at the little bar blinking on the screen in front of him when Annie replies.

Yes... Not used to games like we are... They'd be angry.

It goes against everything he knows, everything he'd told his tributes as they prepared to go into the arena. Goes against that deepest, darkest part of himself not even Annie knows about, where an entire city's filth is hidden in stolen confessions and gossip and rumor, checked and cross-checked until he could lock away the scandalous truth for when he might need it.

Information is power, and it's one of the few forms of power he's ever had. It's power to be just a little better prepared, just a little quicker when the alliance breaks, just a little smarter in your tactics. It's power to stay alive, and with this stark proof that someone's been doing something, he wants that power so much. Almost enough to say he doesn't care what the others think.

But Annie does care, and she's right, in a way. The others would be angry if they found out that the people who've been outsiders from the start hid this sort of information from them. Angry, and suspicious, and enough of them are suspicious of the victors already.

"Okay, we tell them," he agrees, setting his hands on the keys for the computer, though it's useless to do so.

He shakes his head and turns back to Annie. "This thing needs a password."

There's another stack of papers next to him, and when he picks one up, he sees some sort of cardboard cover over another stack, labeled Project Athena.

"The others said the documents they found had 'Project Theseus' written on them." He picks up the pile of papers and holds it up for Annie to see. "These ones say 'Project Athena'."

Like 'Theseus', it sounds a little familiar, like a Career from District Two or some up-and-coming photographer in the Capitol.

Annie watches him as he considers her answer. She has more logic if he needs it, more points of consideration. They are both of them conscious of their image, but he's popular while she's crazy: she's always going to be more in-tune with the negative reactions, and how people react in turn. He can tear people to shreds, but he's too famous, too Finnick Odair to be the one given a social cold shoulder. Annie gets the sniggers, the unease, the petty insults and isolation.

She's also the one that the Gamemakers decided to give brattish certificates to, and it is making her jumpy.

Except, she doesn't need to. He sees her point, and she smiles at him. A bit ruefully, due to the context of this conversation, but it's always nice when he can follow her background logic without her having to word it.

Then Annie frowns. "A password," she says, slowly. "Try Athena? Sometimes passwords are a formality." She doesn't really think so in this case, and anyway she has to bat away the image of Athena Marchent (District Two, seventeen) from the 43rd Games. It had not been a nice way to die, even by Game standards.

It probably isn't going to hurt to try her suggestion, so he does, though he has to search for each of the letters before he can hit them, and it takes him a long time to find the n.

The password you entered was incorrect.

"No," he says, and he tries 'Theseus', just in case, but the same thing happens. It's never actually struck him as the style of the Gamemakers to make anything that simple. He wonders, at that, whether this, too, is some sort of test, not a place they just happened to find because the earthquake revealed a cave they'd never seen before, but something designed to trick them, lure them into a sense of having discovered something forbidden when really it's just another game.

He doesn't know, and he doesn't like not knowing. At least in the arena, everyone knows the rules.

He shakes his head and gives up on the computer, heading over to Annie. He leafs through a few of the documents in the pile next to her, careful not to disturb the one she's been working on.

"Could use someone from Three here," he says. None of what's written there makes any sense to him.

(That reminds him of last year, last year when the Careers had formed an alliance with District Three, and he'd still been watching when Katniss Everdeen turned his cleverness against him and dealt the Careers a devastating blow.)

"We're not going to be able to copy it all," he eventually says, forcing himself back to here, now, in their orange-gilt cage.

"Maybe someone here has those kinds of skills?" It'd fit, she thinks, if only for the added enjoyment of watching that person get frustrated. Or maybe get a little part of the way, and then get stuck. Oh, how the audience would groan.

Then Annie huffs at him. "I, no, you're right. I've gotten what should logically be the introduction and hypothesis, if this is created like a proper scientific report. I can't seem to find the conclusion. Um, at least not... now." It could be in another pile, she supposes.

"I'll sketch this place. Just in case. Be useful in explaining it to the others."

Glass is her preferred medium, but she can sketch out a place like this easily enough, complete with the dimensions. "Um, maybe while I do that, you see what else you can find?"

Finnick is no artist, and he's never pretended to be one. But he watches, and he remembers. So while Annie puts this place down on the sketchbook she'd been given, Finnick keeps looking. He leafs through stacks of paper. He tries other computers. He studies the odd, metallic cage around the room, trying to think if he's ever seen anything like it before, and deciding that he hasn't.

It's while he's studying the outside that he sees what the metal does to the sparks. He's still holding his knife; if the Gamemakers are going to mark them for death for finding this place, he doesn't know how much good the little folding knife will be, but it will be better than nothing if a mutt attacks. Even in the cave, the charged air sparks off the metal of the blade, like a shoregoing St. Elmo's Fire.

Except it sparks off the blade into the metal mesh and disappears. And when he goes back in, the sparks disappear entirely.

The whole rest of the time the two of them are in there, there are no more sparks on his knife.

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ψ they got the cages, they got the boxes

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